The Last of Us: Miles To Go
by TitanicWaffle
Summary: Fifteen years after the outbreak Thomas Gerald and his daughter Sandra are on a journey to a hopefully operational quarantine zone. How far will they be willing to go to reach it alive?
1. Chapter 1: Windsor

Thomas squinted through his dingy spectacles at the overgrown mass of vines and grass that had been set before him. He reached forward and grasped the dewey strings, giving them a hard tug and pulling them down to reveal an old yellowing sign.

"What's it say, daddy?" Sandra asked. Thomas pulled his glasses off, only now realizing how dirty they were. As he wiped them down he squinted once more.

"Chrysler Center, my dear. They used to manufacture automobiles," Thomas said to the girl as he pointed off to the left at a car lot filled with abandoned and mossy vehicles, "like those." Sandra didn't say anything but he could feel her weight shift on his back as she turned to examine the point of interest. "I'm sorry dear, I'd love to let you look but we have to go. We're almost to the tunnel." Thomas proclaimed, stepping away from the sign. As he stepped back into the street to continue walking he had to adjust Sandra on his back.

"Daddy?" Sandra asked after the uncomfortable shifting.

"I'm fine, dear. Daddy's just getting old, carrying you isn't as easy as it used to be."

"I can walk." Sandra said quietly, seemingly embarrassed.

"I'll tell you what, once we get into the tunnel I'll put you down." Thomas said. Sandra hugged him tightly to let him know she was happy with the suggestion. She was quite mature for a six year old, she never complained about anything even when Thomas knew she wanted to. In the last month she'd even given up struggling when Thomas cut her hair down short. "It'll help keep you safe." he'd always tell her as he snipped away the brown curls she and her mother had loved so much. And it seemed that the message had finally sunk in.

"Oh look, sweetie." Thomas said after roughly ten minutes of walking. He pointed to a green road sign, vines crawling from the base to the top, though it appeared somebody else may have removed them from the sign itself. "Ottawa Street. That means we're getting close."

"How far away is it? Sandra asked, gleefully. Thomas felt his heart grow noticeably warmer at the sound of her joyful response.

"Half an hour, maybe. Unless we run into some obstacles." Thomas said. "We should be more careful now, however. We're entering the residential area of the city."

"What's that mean?" Sandra asked innocently.

"Houses."

"Oh." Sandra knew what that meant. Not only did she know, but she understood and obeyed. That made it easy to evade any infected. And surprisingly Thomas wasn't seeing many of them. The ones he did see were oblivious, far off, or too weak to do anything about him. The infected had become increasingly less aggressive since he'd passed into the lower Toronto area. The numbers had dwindled as well, though Thomas was sure that they'd encounter plenty as soon as they got through the Windsor.

"Look, my dear." Thomas said, creeping out of the winding alleyways they had taken after turning onto Ottawa Street. "The river." He walked out into the street, seemingly without a care, and approached the sidewalk on the opposite side. The Detroit River flowed energetically through Windsor, fish jumped out and into the air on occassion, a couple of ducks were perched on a fallen log laying half in the river and half on the shore, and just then did Thomas notice the sound of the Robins chirping in the distance. "Isn't it beautiful, Sandra?" He asked.

"Yes." was all she could muster. Thomas knew this was the first time Sandra had seen a body of water of any significant size. She'd spent her entire life in central Ontario, sure she'd seen a passing stream or pong but nothing of this magnitude. "What did it look like before?" Sandra asked.

"Well. I imagine it didn't look much different. Maybe less burnt out cars." Thomas said turning his head to look at his daughter's face resting on his shoulder. She smiled.

It only took ten minutes to reach the Windsor Tunnel from the part of the river they were viewing. Cars were piled up around the Customs booths in front of the tunnel, likely left by those attempting to flee into America during the outbreak. Behind the cars were the cracked husks that once held Canadian and American customs officers set to check the passports of those attempting to cross the border via tunnel. There appeared to have been several accidents as well. Upon approaching the cars Thomas noticed several bodies as well. They were old though. Too old to tell if any had been infected.

"Alright." Thomas said, unbuckling the backpack strap on his chest and gently setting down his bag. After that he untied the sling he'd built for Sandra and allowed her to slide down off his back. "As promised." he said as he knelt down to place the sling into his bag and adjust the straps to fit his body without the child on his back. Sandra stretched and yawned loudly. "Don't look inside the cars, my sweet. Come now." He said, picking her up in both hands and setting her on the trunk of a red Impala; after which he hoisted himself up onto the same trunk. He took her hand and led her across the short field of cars before them. Thomas made sure to step lightly just in case any of them still had working car alarms, he wasn't worried about Sandra setting one off; she was lighter than a dog despite looking a bit chubby at a glance. Thomas on the other hand felt heavy and thick even though he maintained quite a slender frame. Perhaps it was just his old age weighing down on him but he felt that he couldn't be careful enough.

Finally stepping down from the cars in between two customs booths Thomas ordered Sandra to keep watch while he looked inside one of them. He spent a moment scrounging around before Sandra tugged on his pant-leg. He looked back at her and she pointed back out beyond the cars. Looking up and straining to see Thomas noticed a group of what appeared to be five adults walking close to the shore. They were being quite casual but they looked armed as well. Finishing up his search quickly he grabbed a folded up map on detroit still wrapped in a clear plastic baggie, shoved it into the inner pocket of his white suit jacket and then took Sandra's hand. "Good looking out, dear. Let's go." he said, approaching the winding entrance to the tunnel.

It started to get dark inside the tunnel almost immediately but the light produced from the entrances at either end provided at least some form of guidance. Thomas was glad because he didn't want to waste any more battery on his flashlight than he needed to. And, thankfully, the infected didn't seem to have made any sort of move on the tunnel.

"You're being very brave, dear. I'm glad you're getting over your-..." Thomas started but was interrupted by a feeling of overwhelming vertigo just before feeling the cold cement floor touch his chest.

"Dad?" Sandra yelled.

"I'm quite alright, dear. I just stumbled." Before Thomas stood up he reached into his backpack's side pocket to grab the long silver mag-light and press the black rubber button located roughly halfway down the length of it. As the light flicked on Thomas found his glasses quickly and pushed himself up to his feet. Looking over at his daughter he noticed a look of unmistakeable horror in her eyes. Confused, he looked down to find that he had stumbled over the ragged body of a long-gone clicker. The fungus growing out of it's skull was wilted and brown, and it looked as though its body had been contorted into some very uncomfortable position before death. He stepped back toward Sandra and put a hand on her, then shined his light forward.

The tunnel floor was littered with the corpses of seemingly infected corpses. "Don't look dear." Was all he could tell her. He wouldn't be able to tie Sandra's sling on and adjust his backpack in the dark of the tunnel, and he didn't want to force his daughter to remain in this frightening hole any longer than he had to. Instead he walked her over to the side of the tunnel. "Keep your hand on the wall so you don't get lost, and keep your eyes off the floor." he told her, and she obeyed. As they walked through the tunnel Thomas shined the light around, he saw more infected and at one point a dead, non-infected, person. It would have been better to loot his body but Thomas decided not to make Sandra stand around and wait for him to perform some potentially fruitless search; so they continued on toward the light at the end of the tunnel.


	2. Chapter 2: The Maroon Colored Love

With the Windsor tunnel a few miles behind them and the sun quickly falling into bed behind the horizon Thomas lead Sandra into a run down apartment complex. They took refuge on the third floor where the wall had been partially broken off so they could easily see outside into the city to keep watch, though Thomas made sure that neither of them stood too close to the hole lest they be seen by scavengers or worse. They laid down in a corner across from the hole so they could have a view of the stars. They only had one blanket but it worked to cover both of them so long as they lay close, and Thomas didn't mind. He loved sleeping next to his daughter, he could tell it made her feel safer.

"Daddy, I'm hungry." Sandra said after having been laying down for a good ten minutes. Only then did Thomas realize that he hadn't provided her with anything to eat for at least ten hours.

"Oh, yes of course my dear I had forgotton." He said, sitting up and grabbing the backpack he'd set near his feet. He scrounged around inside for a moment before pulling out a relatively clean zip lock bag, inside was about a quarter pound of jerky. He pulled out three bits for her and three for himself and then held her on his lap, wrapped in the blanket as they ate. By the time Thomas realized Sandra had even finished eating she was fast asleep in his arms. Rather than move her and wake her up he simply cuddled back into the corner and held her, falling asleep in an upright position.

He woke before sunrise the next morning and had Sandra up, dressed, and fed by the time the sun was halfway over the horizon. In the darkness of the night Thomas hadn't realized how dirty and decrepid the room he had selected for them was. Furniture had been torn apart, likely by looters, the ground was covered in dirt and there was a dark brown stain in the curtains along the sides of the only in-tact window in the room. He wanted to get a look outside before they left. He crept slowly over to the broken out wall and peered outside into the streets. There were none in the direct vicinity of the building but off in the distance, in the direction they were heading, Thomas could make out the silhouettes of shambling, stumbling, infected husks. Not an exponential amount, but enough that he knew he'd have to be extra careful on his way out of the city.

According to the map Thomas had picked up from the Customs booth, highway Ninety Four out of Detroit would take them straight across michigan, then they could follow the coast all the way to Chicago. They were out of the apartment a few minutes later and on the road. That didn't last long, however, as they soon encountered an abandoned blockade set up with cars and crates and barbed wire. They were forced to turn to the alleys again. It slowed progress but it was likely safer anyway. It only took an hour for Thomas to start to feel the fatigue of carrying his daughter again.

"Sandra..." Thomas said, exhaling deeply.

"Yes?" his daughter asked happily.

"Would you like to walk?" Thomas asked. And with that Sandra was on her feet again, walking through the alleys and holding her father's hand. After about twenty minutes of walking from alley to alley, carefully crossing streets, and evading the occasional infected Thomas found himself looking into a store that appeared to be more or less untouched. "Sandra, look." he said, pointing in through the glass at a little maroon colored teddy bear with a big S on its chest. Sandra's eyes widened and she smiled.

"Can we get it?" she asked him. Thomas looked around and then to the door. The windows had metal bars on the inside so he couldn't pass through even if he broke the glass. He turned the brass doorknob, it was locked but that wasn't much of a surprise. Thomas took Sandra's hand and took a look around the building. It was made of brick, no obviously accessible way to the rooftop, only two doors though the back door seemed much weaker than the front. Both were locked but Thomas was fairly certain he could get the back door open if he tried hard enough.

"Stand back, dear." He said to Sandra before kicking the doorknob with all of his might. He felt a jolt in his leg but it soon faded back to normal, and thankfully fifteen years without maintainence had made the knob rusty and weak. The knob fell off and exposed the lock which had, also, been broken. Thomas was then able to push the door open quietly. He looked back at Sandra and smiled. Before entering, just to be safe, Thomas removed the .357 Magnum he kept from the holster attached to his side on the inside of his jacket. He opened the cylinder to check his ammunition. "Three." he mumbled quietly to himself. "Alright dear, remember what I told you?" he asked his daughter quietly.

"Don't do anything dangerous, run and hide if anything happens." She recited as though it were a bible verse she had been practicing. Thomas smiled at her and nodded once before moving into the building, gun raised in one hand. He checked all the corners and listened intently for noises. After he was certain that the back room, which appeared to be an empty stock room, was clear he moved to the door leading into the store proper. He looked back at Sandra and motioned for her to move away from the door. He placed a hand on the brass knob and held the gun at the ready, slowly inching the door open and peering inside. It looked clear, if he hadn't encountered anybody by now he was fairly certain that he wouldn't. He let his guard down some and pushed the door open, still checking all corners as he entered the room. A peek over at the counter revealed a long bloodstain heading up the back wall, anybody with a second grade education could infer as to what lay under it. "Don't go over there." He told Sandra, who paid very little attention as she rushed over to greet her new bear.

"Can I give it a name?" she asked as Thomas began looking through the shelves for useful supplies.

"Well, I suppose you should." he said.

"Sunny? Do you like that name? I think you do..." Thomas tuned out the next few minutes of lovey dovey talk between Sandra and her bear. He continued to search the shelves.

"Bandaids, yes. Bandages, yes. Peroxide, certainly." he mumbled as he stuffed medical supplies into his bag. He then approached the counter very slowly, knowing he wasn't going to like what he was about to see. Behind the desk was the body of the apparant clerk, although he was missing a few choice bits of meat above the shoulders. On the ground next to him lay a gun similar to Thomas' although the one on the ground was a short barrel. He picked it up and opened the cylinder. It was full, except for one. He emptied them out and then pocketed the rounds before turning to check the counter. Anti-biotics, they would definitely come in handy. Other than that there was nothing he really needed that he didn't already have.

A few moments later he and Sandra were back outside and heading through the alleys, though this time Sandra hugged her bear with both hands rather than donating one to her father. "What did you decide to name it?" Thomas asked, his right hand casually trailing behind Sandra to compensate for the lack of handholding.

"Bear." Sandra replied, snuggling the maroon colored, cotton stuffed critter up to her chin.

"That's very, um... Creative." he said.

"Yeah, I-..." Sandra began but was cut off by sound of a gunshot echoing through the alleys nearby. Without a moments hesitation Thomas knelt down near Sandra who had just let out a little yelp at the sound of the gun. He put his arms around her and looked around to try and decipher where the noise had come from. Then there was another shot, followed by another. In the winding alleyways it was too difficult to tell where the noise originated from, but Thomas could tell one thing for sure: he heard hissing.

"Let's go." he said as calmly as possible, hoisting Sandra up and carrying her in his sinewy arms. He ran as fast as he could through the alley and out into the street. Looking out at the masses of abandoned cars and buildings overgrown with green and gray moss he could clearly make out the infected shambling to get over the vehicles on either side of him. To his left he could see at least three clambering to be the first over the vehicles. By the time he turned to see one rushing through the alley behind him the ones to his left had made it onto the ground. Thomas ran as fast as he could down the street as fast as his legs could carry him, several infected hot on his heels. At some point he felt the urge to change course, and turned off of the main road, shoving himself into the wooden door of some bakery. Dropping Sandra down as gently and yet quickly as he could Thomas shoved the door closed and held himself against it. He braced for impact but it almost wasn't enough to withstand the violent thrash of the infected against the door as five or six of them hurled their bodies into it with no regard for their own wellbeing. "Check upstairs! Go!" Thomas yelled without being able to look back to see if Sandra was listening to him, he knew that she would be despite how scared she must be.

A few moments later she came back down. "There's a window, we can go on the roof!" she yelled.

"Go!" Thomas ordered her; simultaneously fighting back another wave of thrashing. This time he could hear her run upstairs. Soon it was too much to handle and he had to yield. He backed off of the door, drawing his gun from his inner suit jacket as quickly as he could and retreating up the stairs faster than he thought possible for a man in his early forties. He saw the open window which Sandra must have used to get outside. The roof was right under the window, not even a foot below. He stepped through with one foot and saw his daughter standing there waiting for him, just as he pulled his second foot through he noticed an infected, relatively fresh by the look of him, scrambling through the window. Frightened and at a loss for how to handle it Thomas delivered a swift kick across the left side of the infected man's face, it slowed him down but not much else.

The nextdoor roof was very close, separated by a gap of roughly four feet. Thomas rushed away from the window and grabbed Sandra almost violently. "I love you, dear." he said, planting a kiss on her cheek and then tossing her to the other roof. Before he could jump he felt a set of hands grab his shoulders and yank him backward. Thinking quickly, Thomas used the momentum caused by the jerk the infected man had directed at him to push backward with force and knock him down. He then ran forward and jumped, landing on the other roof and rolling onto his stomach. He got onto his knees and shakingly loaded three of the loose rounds he'd collected into his pistol. Upon checking back to see what the infected were doing he noticed the last of them flinging themself off the side of the roof to fall to the ground below. They must not have understood what it would mean to continue running toward them.

Sandra, on the other hand, had begun crying when she saw the infected grab Thomas. Or when she had landed as she seemed to have scraped her arm on the roof when Thomas tossed her. He looked at her and held his arms out. She dropped her bear and fell into them to embrace him in a tight hug.

"Daddy... I... Daddy..." She said, attempting to form a cohearant sentence.

"Hush, sweetie, I know. Hush, it's okay." Thomas attempted to comfort her but he knew she must have been horribly frightened, after all so was he. "We need to move," Thomas brushed a hair out of Sandra's face and then held her baby-fat ridden cheeks, "hear me?" he asked. She nodded. Another shot came from the distance. Looking over the edge of the roof that they were situated on Thomas saw three infected, one of which was a clicker with overgrown fungal pads breaking through the top of it's head like a misshapen top-hat, heading toward the east, completely oblivious to the broken bodies of the still moaning infected that had fallen from the roof.

Thomas helped Sandra and Bear over the gap and back through the window. He kept his gun ready as he slowly lead her downstairs and out the back door of the bakery. They pushed out into the street directly behind and ran. Thomas couldn't keep his eyes from wandering all around. The streets around them had grown quiet, but in the distance gunfire could still be heard. Thomas had no idea what could warrant such heavy fighting, but he decided that it would be far from wise to try and find out. "This way." he told Sandra, leading her down a street labeled West Chicago Avenue. An area of road was stretched out before him on either side, though luckily it was not too crowded with vehicles to get one up and out should any of them be capable of running. After about ten minutes (that felt like ten hours) of turning keys he finally found a green Taho that seemed capable of push starting.

"We're gonna ride in a car?" Sandra asked him

"I hope so. I need you to turn the key for me sweetheart." He said, opening the driver door for Sandra. She seemed unsure of what to do. "Just turn the key when I tell you." She still didn't seem ready for the task but she complied. It wouldn't work, but moments later Thomas found a red Dodge Charger that seemed useable. They repeated the ritual and this time Sandra completed the task with little trouble. Thomas then only took a moment to move her and situate her in the back seat. Placing himself in the front he began to navigate the winding sea of cars before stopping somewhat abruptly. "We can't leave yet." he said.

"Why not?" Sandra asked, confused.

"Because you're not wearing your seatbelt."


	3. Chapter 3: The Never Meaningless World

In his haste to leave the city Thomas had neglected, if he had even considered, to siphon any gasoline from any nearby vehicles. The car that they found, however, had roughly a third of a tank at the ready. Sandra had fallen asleep approximately ten miles down the freeway. The sun had begun its descent in the west by the time Thomas had realized that the car stereo had a CD changer available. Fiddling with it for a few moments he finally managed to decipher its mechanisms and get 'Bad Moon Rising' by Credence Clearwater to come on. The music came blasting out of the radio, the previous owner of the car must have had a taste for loud music. The noise resulted in Thomas noticing Sandra open her eyes in the back seat.

"So sorry my dear." he said, turning the volume knob downward as quickly as his not-so-nimble fingers would allow.

"Is it morning or night?" Sandra asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Look over there," Thomas said as he aimed his index finger off to the right side of the freeway. "That's west, what does it mean when the sun is in the west? I know you know this," Thomas announced.

"It means the sun is on the right."

"That's right. And right is west and west means night." Thomas finished.

"So it's night?" Sandra asked.

"Kind of." Thomas said smiling at her in the mirror.

"Daddy," Sandra said in a somewhat monotonous tone.

"What's wrong, dear?"

"Where is the music coming out of?" she asked. It struck Thomas that this was the first time his daughter had ever heard pre-recorded music.

"The car dear. Cars have machines in them that lets you listen to music so long as you have a CD." Thomas informed her, turning the knob to the right to increase the volume. "Do you like it?" he asked. Sandra did not respond. Thomas looked back at her in his rear-view mirror to find her eyes closed and her head bobbing loosely from side to side, a wide smile had made her face its home. Having a daughter would have been a lot of work even fifteen years ago before the outbreak but it was moments like these that reminded Thomas what exactly people lived for beforehand. Her smile, thankfully, was not something that the apocalypse had beaten out of her and Thomas truly did everything he possibly could to ensure that it would never have the chance. Thirty minutes then passed of Thomas and Sandra listening to the same ten tracks on repeat and staring at the mesmerizing plant growth that had claimed the freeway in the last fifteen maintenance devoid years. The gas gauge had lowered noticeably and Thomas assumed that they would be turning off of the freeway to abandon their car before the night was over.

"Daddy lets play a game," Sandra demanded.

"What game do you want to play, your majesty?" Thomas asked as a sarcastic rebuttal to her somewhat spoiled demand. He didn't mind her attitude, he liked to spoil her at least a little anyway.

"What does that mean?" She asked.

"Ah, nothing. What are we playing?" He asked as he silenced the radio.

"How did he die," Sandra said. Thomas mouthed the name of the game as the words came out of her mouth. She always wanted to play how did he die. The spent the next hour giving each other hints as to the condition of a corpse and making the other guess what exactly killed him. Thomas always provided easy answers, he was stabbed, shot, burned. Sandra liked to come up with wild fantasies like: He was killed by a unicorn, he fell down a well, he dropped his eyeballs. It was cute but Thomas didn't enjoy playing it.

She fell asleep once more shortly after Thomas declared her the victor of their game. Looking up through his front windshield Thomas noticed how high the crescent shaped moon had risen. Just as he passed an exit on the right side the car began to make awkward noises. Looking at the fuel gauge Thomas realized that he had driven the Charger out of gas. Coming to a stop and turning the car around he drove back down and made it back to the exit and down the ramp before the car actually died.

"Kalamazoo. Halfway at least." Thomas mumbled to himself as he let the car die at the bottom of the ramp. He opened up the car door and stepped outside. It was chilly but not too bad considering that it was night time. He approached the drivers side back seat door and opened it up. "Sandra, my dear. Come on you need to get into your sling." She woke up, reaching out for her father, still clutching Bear in her right hand. "No dear, stand up. Climb into the sling, that's it." She complied as she always did. He situated her and got her as comfortable as the makeshift baby-vest would allow before abandoning the charger and heading west down a broken, pot-hole infested, double lined road. It took about ten minutes for them to find an old house that looked serviceable. He let his daughter down and gave her the signal to keep an eye out on the porch while he investigated. He drew the revolver from the inside of his coat and approached the door. It was already cracked open slightly.

He pushed it open and pointed his gun inside. Quietly entering the building he found that the years of dust accumulating inside the old house did little to cover up the eggshell colored walls. Likely they had been painted such a color to match the outer appearance of the residence. The floors gave an insufferable creak as he strode otherwise silently across them. He removed his glasses and polished them against his jacket when he found the immediate area to be clear. The house had no stairs, for which Thomas was thankful, but it did have a breeze-room to the far end which gave him some concern. The house only took a few minutes to thoroughly search, it was quite the modest abode. The breeze-room he entered last but found it to be similarly empty of anything living (other than the ever present overgrowth that had broken through the windows). The room did, however contain boxes which Thomas found to be full of books and plates and blankets. It was likely that the people whom had previously inhabited the house were either new arrivals or were preparing for a move.

He brought Sandra inside and set her on the couch. "I've got an idea sweetheart," He told her. "The other room is teeming with books, would you like a bedtime story?" he asked. Her face lit up and she gave Bear a tight squeeze and then nodded to him graciously. He gave Sandra a decent portion of the dried meat he carried with him whilst he left and viewed the books in the breeze-room and threw several of them off to the side that he was not interested in and then returned with five for his daughter to choose from.

"Cat in the Hat" was Sandra's final choice. He hadn't even finished the book by the time she drifted off. He placed the book and the remaining unread stories into his backpack for later use. He tried to fall asleep but every time he'd come close a violent gurgle would be released from his stomach to spring him back to life. He investigated his food supply and found that they were quite low. He ate the remainder of it as he found that saving anything would have been pointless as there wouldn't be enough to satisfy any sort of hunger they'd encounter in the next day or two. He set Sandra off to the side where she curled up and engrossed Bear somewhere under her. He stood, attempting to avoid creaking the floor however unsuccessfully.

The cupboards in the kitchen were mostly unopened, though searching them proved fruitless. The most he found was the shriveled remains of what used to be something green. Thomas decided it wasn't worth the food poisoning. He checked under the sink but it proved equally futile. Opening the refridgerator Thomas was greeted by the smell of rotting turkey, or perhaps ham. He didn't keep the door open long enough to discern the details. He did end up finding an entire large shaker of Norton Salt and ten zip lock baggies. "Sandra will love being able to season her food." He said as he placed the salt in his backpack's smaller front pocket next to the remainder of his pepper. "She hates pepper." he smiled as he mumbled to himself.

He felt the need to stay up on watch after putting in all of the useless effort exerted to come up empty handed in his search for food, so instead he settled down next to Sandra with a beaten and dusty paperback copy of The Road. It was so relevantly melancholy that he had to trade it out with a copy of The Hound of Baskervilles. Halfway through the story Thomas noticed a glare against his window. It diverted his attention from the story well enough to force him to stand and grab an iron poker from the nearby fireplace and approach the window. Outside he found a lone man walking slowly down the street, it was too dark to make out any details but he seemed to be quite unarmed. This was of course never the truth, as a person could not make his own way out in the world without some sort of defense so Thomas concluded that he was instead poorly armed. The man didn't seem to notice Thomas, though he did seem to be approaching the house. A note of irritation crossed his mind before an odd satisfaction slithered its way into his brain. The door opened slowly and the floor creaked.


End file.
